Episode 159 | The Important Connection Between Newton’s 1st Law and ACL Rehab

What is up team and welcome back to another episode on the ACL Athlete Podcast. We’re jumping straight into it today, episode 159, the important connection between Newton’s first law and ACL rehab. You’re probably wondering what the heck does this have to do with ACL rehab. And you’re like, Ravi, you’re getting a little out there. You need to bring it back in. So hear me out today, guys, this is a good one. It’s short and sweet. 

Just want to hit this point home because I know with the current timing of what we’re in with being in February, if you’re listening, as this is released. If you’re listening to this later in 2024 and 2025, maybe it’s 2027 and you’re listening to this, I hope this still hits because it applies to any time of the year. But since we are at the beginning of the year, but we’re a little past January, it’s easy for things to slow down a little bit. Life gets in the way. I think this one is going to be really helpful to make sure we keep things going.

What is Newton’s first law? I have taken a lot of science classes in my time, a lot of physics, a lot of biomechanics, all the things. We come back to the foundational principles, the rules that govern what we do. Newton’s first law is one of those. An object at rest remains at rest or an object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by a net external force. I’m going to repeat that again. Newton’s first law is an object at rest remains at rest or an object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by a net external force. What does this have to do with ACL rehab and physics and Newton’s first law — momentum. If you have no momentum, then it’s hard to get going. It’s easier to remain at rest. An object at rest remains at rest. If you are in motion, it’s easier to stay in motion. If you have momentum, it’s allowing that to build and keep you in motion. Same thing going on here with Newton’s first law. 

And so you’re going to feel a lot of shifts in your momentum as you’re going through ACL rehab, to be honest. There’s no sugarcoating here on this podcast. We are full transparency as an ACLer two times myself, walking hundreds of athletes through this. As a team, we work with athletes, clinicians, coaches who work with ACLs. We have seen this time and time again. It is an ebb-and-flow process. It’s a long process until something changes with the state of healthcare, with our systems, and with something magically speeding up the biology of our human bodies. It’s a long process and we know that reinjury rates are high so we have to do our due diligence. This is where we got to make sure if you’re an ACLer who listened to this, we got to dial in our ways of keeping our mindset focused as we’re going through this and understanding that there are going to be ups and downs, and knowing that ACL rehab is super long.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to suck the whole time. There are definitely some solid moments in this process and you will learn so much about yourself. You really well through the highs and lows of it all. I have learned so much about myself and knowing I could do hard things in all honesty. I know I can do hard stuff and I can deal with pain. I can deal with working hard. It’s something that is me as a human. This is something that you will also recognize through this process because this injury does shift who you are. And I think for the better, in all honesty at the moment, you’re like, ah, this sucks and I don’t want to do this and I just want to be at the end. But once you’re through it, you will look back and be like, wow, that really did impact me. 

I know that there could be some negative kind of impacts to it, for sure, especially if there’s a lot of ups and downs. But there’s also so much positive that can come from this. This is the mindset we have to take, even if we are having this long process that we know that there’s going to be some positives that come from this. 

The thing is that we have to make sure that we continue to keep this momentum going. You’re going to have those times where it builds like crazy and you’ll have moments where it feels like it hits that wall. That’s okay. It’s normal. It’d be super weird if it was just linear, to be honest. And in reality, 99.9% of ACL would say it’s non-linear. There’s ups and downs — is that weird graphic of the reality versus the expectations, where you have this perfect line going up towards your goals. And just time moving along and then there’s just the random jagged reality line. That’s like, oh, the curves, ups and downs going backward down. And then eventually you make it towards that, but it’s not the expected path you had. And that’s where we have to anchor this to making sure that you have a clear expectation on this process and knowing what this can look like. And that’s our goal with this podcast, with what we do, is to share the reality of that and set realistic expectations of what this can look like. 

Now, what can you take away from this? Momentum can be hard to start or restart. But once it does, and especially as it builds, it is hard to stop. And so it’s important to remember, especially at the times where it can feel like it’s slowing down or at a complete stop. Even if it slows down that’s okay, you’re still in a better place than you were yesterday and earlier because you allowed it to keep going. 

We just don’t want it to flat-out stop because then that’s going to halt any progress and that’s coming back to that notion of Newton’s first law. If it’s at rest, it’s going to stay at rest; if it’s in motion, it’s going to stay in motion. It doesn’t matter what the degree of motion it is. If it’s even going at, let’s say a 2 miles per hour speed versus a 50 miles per hour speed, you’re still moving forward. It might just be at different speeds. But as long as we don’t allow that to come down to zero, that’s where the money is, that’s where we want to be. And since we’re in this new year, as I mentioned, with February, people’s momentum will often stop. They go hard in January and almost struggle because of the life that is coming out of this in terms of getting into the new year. This is something that we got to make sure we come back to and recognize, okay, we had all these goals. Especially if you’re in this ACL rehab, ebb and flow, it’s to get back on course. Because it’s easy to just start out the year and be like, all right, I got all this set up, plan goes a little haywire, life gets at you, you got sick, all the things. You had a setback and then it’s trying to get back on track.

This is where we want to make sure we have application to this. How can we get past those moments and keep the momentum going? Five-minute role. This is something where you could set a timer, whether it’s your daily range of motion work, your exercises, maybe it’s mindset work, getting on the bike, strength, work, you name it. Do it for five minutes. It often helps to push past the initial resistance that you feel, builds up some momentum, and it’s often easier to keep going. If in five minutes you still hate your life and want to stop, just stop it, at least you kept that momentum going and the motion non-zero. And that is what is important here, regardless of how fast you were doing it or how long you did it. The other thing you’ll notice is that the resistance will leave and you end up being glad you did it. Then that compounds and builds more momentum, more progress, and more results over time, moving you closer to your goals and the thing that you were striving to get back to your livelihood, the thing you care about the most, your dreams, your passions, that’s the goal here. 

That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re doing this to be closer to those things that mean so much to us. When you’re in that moment, think of Newton’s first law. Stay in motion and build momentum. Until next time, team. This is your host, Ravi Patel, signing off.